 "File image of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun")
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun has released yet another video threatening India’s sovereignty.
The pro-Khalistani separatist leader and chief of the radical group Sikhs for Justice in a video has threatened to ‘Balkanise’ India.
Pannun published the video in response to Canadian deputy minister for foreign affairs David Morrison saying India’s territorial integrity must be respected.
Morrison, addressing a public hearing in Ottawa earlier this month, had said, “Canada’s policy is very clear, that India’s territorial integrity must be respected."
“There’s one India and that’s been made very clear,” he added.
But what did Pannun say? And what is Balkanisation?
Let’s take a closer look:
What did Pannun say?
Pannun, a New York-based Sikh secessionist leader who advocates for the creation of Khalistan, in his video entitled Mission of SFJ 2024: ONE India, To 2047: NONE India threatened to begin separatist movements in different parts of the country including Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Manipur, and Nagaland, as per The Times of India.
Pannun is the legal advisor and spokesperson for SFJ, a banned organization that seeks to achieve Khalistan through a referendum.
Pannun, a dual citizen of Canada and the United States, threatened to “Balkanise the Union of India” as well as urged Chinese President XI Jinping to take back Arunachal Pradesh.”
“Now is the time to order the Chinese army to take Arunachal Pradesh back,” Pannun said, while wrongly claiming that the Indian state is “the territory of China.”
Pannun said the SFJ would continue to use the protection and support of Canadian and American laws to continue to campaign for independence movements to “Balkanise and disintegrate the Union of India.”
“By 2047, the current borders and boundaries of the Union of India will be redrawn and wiped out from the world map," Pannun added.
Pannun in 2007 founded SFJ, “with the express intent of achieving self-determination for the Sikh people in their historic homeland in the region of Indian held Punjab and establishing a sovereign state, popularly known as Khalistan.”
SFJ and Pannun both gained attention in August 2018 after they planned a sizable pro-Khalistan Sikh gathering in London’s Trafalgar Square and declared their campaign, “Referendum 2020.”
He was declared a terrorist by the Indian government that same year, and under Section 51A of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, his agricultural land was confiscated.
What is Balkanisation?
Brittanica defines Balkanisation as the “division of a multinational state into smaller ethnically homogeneous entities.”
As per New Indian Express, it is defined as “the fragmentation of a larger region or state into smaller regions or states, which may be hostile or uncooperative with one another. It is usually caused by differences of ethnicity, culture, and religion and some other factors such as past grievances.”
The term itself originated at the end of World War I.
It is thought to have come from English editor James Louis Garvin, as per Indian Express.
However, others say the phrase was created by German socialists describing the outcome of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
It was, at the time, used to describe the events in the Balkans that followed the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Empire, which had ruled almost all of the Balkan Peninsula, fractured into smaller entities between 1817 and 1912, according to thought.co.
The Balkan Peninsula gets its name from the Balkan Mountains, as per Indian Express.
After World War I, many new independent states were formed from the ashes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The term today is used to describe the deterioration of states into dictatorship, ethnic cleansing, and civil war.
It usually comes about as a result of ethnic divide.
However, other factors including nationalism, independence, imperialism, and anti-colonialism can also play a role, as per thought.co
Geopolitical scientist and author Michel Foucher defines it as “the constant involvement of foreign powers (Russia, Austro-Hungary, Germany, France, and Great Britain) directed at the protection or establishment of their spheres of interests.”
However, Balkanisation isn’t limited merely to the Balkans.
As per Britannica, many other places have also witnessed this phenomenon.
This includes Africa in the 1950s and 1960s as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
The results of Balkanisation aren’t pretty.
According to Britannica, the surviving states have become locked in seemingly never ending conflicts – for example Armenia and Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s – with thousands being killed.
With inputs from agenciesEX